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Speakers (Currently Confirmed)

Sam Pitroda Advisor to Prime Minister of India on Public Information, Infrastructure & Innovation

Sam Pitroda is an inventor, entrepreneur and policymaker. Currently Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations, he is also widely considered to have been responsible for India's communications revolution. As Advisor, he is looking into creating information infrastructure for enhancing delivery of services to the citizens in various areas and is also be working on creating a roadmap for a 'Decade of Innovation' in India.

He has served as Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission (2005-2008), a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister of India, set up to give policy recommendations for improving knowledge related institutions and infrastructure in the country. Mr. Pitroda holds around 100 key technology patents, has been involved in several start ups, and lectures extensively around the world. He is also the founder & CEO of C-SAM, Inc. The company maintains its headquarters in Chicago with offices in London, Tokyo , Mumbai and Vadodara. Following the development of core technologies in the U.S. and Europe, C-SAM's development centers in India now focus on innovation, customization and cost effective deployment for its customers.


Venkat Ramaswamy Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

He is a globally recognized thought leader, idea practitioner, and eclectic scholar with wide-ranging interests in innovation, strategy, marketing, branding, IT, operations, and the human side of the organization. He is a prolific author of numerous articles—including the popular Harvard Business Review article "Co-opting Customer Competence" and the MIT-PricewaterhouseCoopers award-winning Sloan Management Review article "The New Frontier of Experience Innovation" (both coauthored with C. K. Prahalad) as well as the Emerald Literati awardwinning Strategy & Leadership article "Leading the Transformation to Co-Creation of Value"—and is also a sought-after speaker and mentor to global firms. His award-winning book, The Future of Competition (with C. K. Prahalad), introduced co creation as a revolutionary business concept. He has helped several organizations across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America conceive and execute new business ideas through co creation, and build management capabilities for co creation inside their organizations. His new book is The Power of Co-Creation: Build It With Them to Boost Growth, Productivity, and Profits (Free Press, October 2010), and a new forthcoming article in the Harvard Business Review (October, 2010) on "Becoming a Co-Creative Enterprise" (both co-authored with Francis Gouillart).


Tarun Das Former Chief Mentor, Confederation of Indian Industry

Mr Das has spent his entire working career in industry associations, starting in 1963 with the organisation now known as Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as the Director General and Chief Executive from 1967 till 2004 and Chief Mentor from 2004 until 2009. Under Tarun's leadership, CII was instrumental in managing and initiating changes that shaped the socio-economic environment of the country over several decades. He is currently Chairman of CII's USA Council and a permanent invitee to the CII National Council and Presidents Council, the two apex bodies of CII.

Mr Das holds trustee and director roles for a diverse range of high-profile global organizations including The Aspen Institute, World Wide Fund - India, The Asia Society, Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation as well as being a member of strategic dialogues for the Indo-US, Indo-US-Japan, India-Singapore and India-China. In addition, Mr Das is part of the Advisory Boards for Microsoft Corporation, VOITH, JCB and ACE Insurance.


Jamshyd N. Godrej Chairman and Managing Director, Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

Jamshyd Naoroji Godrej serves as Chairman and Managing Director of Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. Mr. Godrej has been Non-Executive Non Independent Chairman of Geometric Limited since 2000 and serves as its Director. He serves as Chairman of Great Lakes Institute of Management. He served as Chairman of Aspen Institute, The. He serves as a Director of Godrej Investments Pvt. Ltd., Godrej Household Products Limited, Haldia Petrochemicals Limited, Bajaj Auto Ltd., Godrej ... Agrovet Limited, Godrej Hershey Ltd., Godrej Consumer Products Ltd., ClimateWorks Foundation and World Resource Institute. He is a Director of the Climate Works Foundation, USA. He has been a Past President of the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers' Association. He has been a Director of Godrej Properties Limited since April 25, 1990 and Godrej Industries Ltd. since March 7, 1988. He served as a public interest director of Bombay Stock Exchange Limited from September 28, 2006 to September 19, 2008. He served as Non-executive independent Director of Bajaj Holdings & Investment Limited until February 20, 2008. He served as a Director of Wadala Commodities Ltd. until June 10, 2008. He served as Non-executive independent Director of Bajaj Auto Finance Ltd. He is the Chairman designate for the CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre. He is also the Vice President of the World Wide Fund for Nature International and is a Trustee and President Emeritus of the World Wide Fund for Nature, India. He was the recipient of Padma Bhushan award in April 2003, conferred by the President of India. Mr. Godrej completed his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and masters in business administration, both from the Illinois Institute of Technology, USA.


Gopal Srinivasan   Chairman, TVS Capital

Mr. Gopal Srinivasan is a Founder, Managing Director, and Chairman of TVS Capital Funds Limited. He is also Director of Great Lakes Institute of Management. He also serves as a Joint Managing Director of Sundaram-Clayton Ltd. and TVS Motor Limited. Over the past decade, he has steered the TVS Group to success in the face of global competition. He has incubated over eight businesses, and has over 25 years of operational experience in India, along with a wide network of ... relationships across the world. Over the course of his career, Mr. Srinivasan has founded several companies operating in diverse sectors including computer peripherals, technology, financial services, and auto components. The list of companies that he founded and that are currently operational include TVS Electronics, Harita seating, TVS Finance & Services, Harita Plastics, TVS-E Technology, TVS-E Servicetec, and Harita Techserv. In addition, he has successfully exited several businesses including TVS Whirlpool, TVS Contract Manufacturing, Harita Networks Wireless, and TVS e-Banking. He served as the President of Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT). Mr. Srinivasan is currently a Board Member of several organizations in India, including ICICI Ventures and Milestone Capital and serves as a Director of several other TVS Group businesses. He serves as a Whole-time Director of TVS Electronics Ltd. He is a member of the TVS Group. He has been a Director of Sundaram-Clayton Ltd. since November 29, 1985. He serves as the Chairman of Harita Infoserve Limited, TVS Capital Funds, TVS Finance & Services Limited, TVS-E Servicetec Limited and TVS Investments Limited. He serves as a Director of TVS Motor Company Limited, Management Co. Limited, Lucas TVS Limited, Sundaram Industries Limited, Sundaram Investment Limited, and T V Sundram Iyengar & Sons Limited. He serves as a Director of Harita Infoserve Inc., India Japan Lighting (P) Limited, Harita Electronics (P) Limited, and 9.9 Mediaworx Pvt. Ltd. He is a member of the panel on development, manufacture, and export of IT hardware constituted under the National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development constituted under the authority of the office of the Prime Minister and a member of the State Level Information Technology Task Force headed by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Mr. Srinivasan also served as a key member in various panels of both Central and State Governments. He is the Chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry, Tamil Nadu State Council for the fiscal year 2007-2008. Mr. Srinivasan holds an M.B.A. in Industrial and Business Administration from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a B.Comm from Loyola College, Chennai. He is also Member of Interim Executive Committee of Indian Venture capital Association.


Shekhar Gupta Editor in Chief, Indian Express and Host of Walk the Talk, NDTV

Shekhar Gupta is the Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express, a newspaper at the forefront of investigative and public-affairs journalism. He leads the nation's largest network of award-winning journalists whose work has effected change in several areas, including government policy and legislation.

Shekhar, known as a reporter's editor, has some of the significant newsbreaks in contemporary Indian journalism to his credit. At 26, as a reporter with The Indian Express, he exposed the horrific Nellie massacre in Assam that marked a watershed in the North-East's ethnic conflict. As a reporter, and then an editor, with India Today, India's largest newsmagazine, he uncovered LTTE training camps in India, nailed the lie of official intelligence agencies in a spy scandal that falsely implicated scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation. And seven years before 9/11, travelled across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany, the US and the UK, to report extensively on the threat from Islamic fundamentalism, including its links with Osama bin Laden. His weekly column called National Interest, now in its ninth year, has become a touchstone for new ideas in politics, governance, society, business and sports. He also hosts an interview-based programme Walk the Talk on NDTV 24x7, India's most watched and respected English news channel. A regular guest speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos and its India summits, Shekhar has authored Assam: A Valley Divided and India Redefines Its Role, published by the Oxford University Press by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London. His newspaper won the Vienna-based International Press Institute's first India Award for Outstanding Journalism in the Public Interest.


Anand Raghuraman Partner & (Managing) Director at The Boston Consulting Group

Anand Raghuraman is a growth strategy expert within the Retail & Consumer Products industries with extensive project leadership experience in M&A, JV structuring, marketing and sales, corporate and business unit strategy, market entry strategy, and consumer segmentation. He has lead projects across Asia (India, Japan, China and Hong Kong), the US, and Europe (the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and the UK). Over his consulting career, Anand has worked in multiple industries focusing predominantly on strategic issues, but also has considerable operations experience. His multi-industry work experience enables him to understand best practices that are not in his current focus industries but can be applied there


Prasad Ram Director of Engineering, Google

Dr. Prasad Ram is an Engineer at Google and works on Education and Textbooks! Previously, he has held positions as the Head of Google R&D India in Bangalore, Chief Technology Officer at Yahoo! R&D, India in Bangalore and a Research Scientist at Xerox PARC. Prasad has a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT-Bombay and a Master's and Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has researched on technologies such as Digital Rights Management and led the development of a wide range of products that includes Google MapMaker and Google Finance.

Early on, in 1994 Prasad started India Literacy Project Chapter in Los Angeles. In 2006 Prasad led a team of 1500 parents to create PSBB Learning Leadership Academy in Bangalore - a K12 school. In 2007, he co-founded i-School of Information Management at University of Mysore. Prasad has sat through over 100 classes during his extensive travel across rural India and works with NGOs such as SEWA to help improve their operations and increase their impact through information transparency.


Gunjan Bagla Prominent consultant and author of Doing Business in 21st Century India

Gunjan Bagla is an Indian-American author, blogger, businessman, and public speaker. He is the founder and managing director of Amritt Ventures, a consulting firm based in Cerritos, California, and a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs. He received his bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India, and is currently the president of the Institute's Alumni Association. He also earned an MBA with honors from Southern Illinois University. Bagla has written articles on outsourcing and globalization, some of which have appeared in Dataquest, Daily Variety, Businessworld, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and other publications in the United States and India. His book Doing Business in 21st Century India was published in 2008. Bagla also runs a blog, The India Expert, on international business in India.


Bhairavi Jani National Chairman, CII Young Indians & Director, SCA Group of Companies

Ms. Bhairavi Jani is a Director at SCA Group of Companies. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree Magna Cum Laude in Business, majoring in Decision Sciences (Business Statistics) from Miami University, Ohio. She completed the MYGLOBE executive education program at INSEAD, France. She worked as a Senior Analyst at KPMG Consulting, Washington D.C.

Ms. Jani is actively involved in the implementation of various IT applications like Oracle Financials, Ariba e-procurement, and SAP. Her passion in the Supply Chain Management field saw her set up i3pl, a fourth party logistics company. It has a staff of more than fifty employees, warehouses in five major cities in India, and caters to a host of high-profile clients such as Mahindra and Mahindra, Lego, Frito-Lays, Sara Lee, Airtel, Asian Paints, etc. Ms. Jani believes that information is the toughest and the most crucial piece in a supply chain. She has designed, developed, and implemented numerous web-enabled, user-friendly, customized IT solutions. She has the distinction of having envisaged and executed the first-of-its-kind promotional logistics solution in India.


Rajan Navani Managing Director, Jetline Group of Companies

Rajan Navani is the Managing Director of the Indian arm of the Jetline Group of Companies with interests in packaging manufacturing, entertainment through its venture MeriDhun, software Rajan Navani is the Managing Director of the Indian arm of the Jetline Group of Companies with interests in packaging manufacturing, entertainment through its venture MeriDhun, software development, and new ventures in consumer products and organized retail in India through its chain Big Time. The roots of the Navani group originate back to the 1930??s in Bangkok, Thailand where the group continues to have its diversified business operations. Prior to this, he worked with NASA??s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, USA before returning to Thailand and then to India to enter the family business.

Rajan is currently the National Co-Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Mission on India@75, the Immediate Past National Chairman of CII Young Indians and is a member of CII??s National and Western Regional Councils. Rajan holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA.


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